On Saturday 26 March the first meeting of the Network of Teachers for Historical Memory took place at the Casa de la Memoria La Sauceda in Jimena de la Frontera. The teachers had come from different places in Andalucía and their aim is for historical and democratic memory to be taught as part of the educational curriculum, as detailed in the 2017 Historical and Democratic Memory Law of Andalucía.
After looking around the Casa de la Memoria and its exhibitions, the teachers discussed the difficulties they are currently encountering in providing their classes with relevant information, and about their experiences in the schools in which they work. They plan to set up a repository from which teachers can access educational material and information, and find guidance to help them with the content of their lessons where necessary.
They are also interested in compiling information from their pupils about the experiences of their families in the Civil War and the dictatorship and in the places they live, creating exhibitions about family and local testimony, drawing up local maps of historical memory and placing a special focus on feminine voices.
The teachers also discussed how to commemorate 14 April in schools, as that is the first important date relating to historical memory which is coming up in the near future.
They are planning to make contact with local memorialist associations and councils who are sensitive to historical memory, and to encourage councils to collaborate with schools in arranging memorialist activities.
A spokesman for the group said:
We are confident that more teachers will join this initiative, and we will arrange more meetings of this type in the future. In the meantime we will continue to work so that schools raise awareness of this part of our most recent history, which has been unjustly silenced and twisted, something that is seriously hindering knowledge of democratic values as well as relegating to oblivion those who fought for freedom.
